


Shields

by vigilantesinthedark



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Dialogue Light, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 01:17:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6779155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vigilantesinthedark/pseuds/vigilantesinthedark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before becoming Captain America, Bucky was Steve's shield. Now that he has Bucky back, there's no need to hide behind the one Howard Stark made him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shields

"-don't deserve that shield. My father made that shield." 

Steve could have argued. Could have turned around to face Stark and proved him wrong. Told him all about his father and the shield. Things he'd never have found out otherwise. But Steve was tired. He was tired, and he was a little shit. Seventy years in the ice hadn't changed that. 

So he dropped the shield. Let Tony have it. He didn't care. The shield wasn't what was important. It was a symbol representing Captain America. Steve had never felt that he truly deserves that mantle anyways. It gave him big shoes to fill, even if the super soldier serum had given him larger feet. Dropping it honestly felt like a weight off his shoulders. Maybe if he gave up the shield, he could just be Steve Rogers from Brooklyn again. Everything could go back to whatever the hell normal meant nowadays. 

What Tony didn't see was that though he dropped his fancy, Stark made, vibration shield, he walked away with a far better one. Though old, battered, and broken in many ways, this shield was more important. An older shield than the one he'd gotten as Captain America. Not even a real shield at all. Steve didn't care about losing that shield, because he had his /real/ shield back. He had Bucky back. 

Even when he had nothing, he had Bucky. They'd said it themselves, they were with each other to the end of the line. The end of the line wasn't there yet, but they were far from the beginning. Under the hard exteriors built up over years upon years of unthinkable things, they were still two boys from Brooklyn, trying to find their way in the world together. Only, the world had gotten a lot more confusing. 

When he was a scrappy little thing, if someone told him that he would become Captain America, he would have jus started at them, wide eyed and incredulous, ready for that day to come. But if it had been a choice, become Captain America or not have Bucky by his side, it wouldn't have been a choice. Even when he was young and dreamed of glory, he would have chosen Bucky over the world. Bucky had always been there for Steve. Pulling him out of fights, caring for him when he was sick, working awful hours to help them get by. Bucky was everything and more that the shield had ever been. 

Bucky was strong, physically and otherwise. He worked himself into worse conditions than Steve just to put food on their table. He never tired of being there, staying by Steve's side when anyone else would have left. In the forties and even today, he was strong enough to carry Steve around- which Steve normally hated, but with Bucky, it was different. It was always a different set of rules with him. 

Bucky was a safe spot for Steve. When he was around, the nightmares couldn't come, as if Bucky was warding them off, not letting anything near that would hurt his Stevie. Back then, when Steve was constantly sick, Bucky always knew what to do to make him feel better. Whether it was medicinal, like having his inhaler handy or a dosage of something, or it was something more normal, like soup or simply being there. He could've been a doctor, knowing how to treat all that Steve had- which was almost everything in the book. Being wrapped up in Bucky's arms, Steve felt that nothing in the world could hurt him. 

The shield was something material that he could cling to. Having it proved that this was all real, not some trick or hellish nightmare. Bucky being back was better. Bucky was a grounding force. If Steve got too far into his own head, Bucky could draw him out. On the worst of days, a smile could even be achieved. 

No, Steve didn't give a shit about leaving the shield with Tony. He wouldn't regret that choice. The shield was just a piece of metal. Sure it held memories, but Steve had those stores away in his mind and didn't need the shield to remind him. It didn't even occur to him that dropping the shield back there had been a questionable decision until Bucky brought it up. 

"Y'dropped the shield." A weak voice was all he could manage. It wasn't even a question, just a statement. 

From where he walked, Bucky's flesh arm wrapped around his shoulders for support, Steve turned back to him. "Yeah."

"Why?"

"Some things are more important."

"And that'd be?"

For the first time since the 1940s, Steve wrapped his arms around Bucky's neck and pulled him in close. "You, you jerk."

Bucky took his arm from around Steve's shoulders, and moved it to rest on his cheek. "I love you too punk."

The plane's door closed, leaving all that happened next to the two of them. Captain America and the Winter Soldier. Steven Grant Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes. Steve and Bucky. The two boys from Brooklyn, with each other to the end of the line.


End file.
